It is fascinating to observe the politics behind Dominion’s effort to a coal-fired power plant in Wise County. Although Dominion loaded it up with all manner of clean-coal technologies — circulating fluidized bed technology, waste coal-burning capabilities, sulfur dioxide pollution controls, water-conservation condensers — some environmentalists have made it a cause celebre. Their problem isn’t so much with Dominion’s proposal per se as with any coal-burning power source, which they contend contributes to Global Warming and lays waste to the Appalachian environment.
One might think that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine would be sympathetic to the environmentalists. He has, after all, launched the state’s first Global Warming commission, which held its first working meeting in Charlottesville last week and heard the direst of warnings. (See the presentations made at the meeting.) If the warnings prove to be true, Virginia could find itself ravaged by higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and rising sea levels — most of it driven by increasing consumption of fossil fuels… like the Wise County power plant.
But that’s 90 years down the road. In the short term, Kaine surely is cognizant that Southwest Virginia could use the $1.8 billion injection of construction spending, not to mention the 75 permanent power-plant jobs, augmented tax base, and 350 coal-mining jobs. Meanwhile, demand for electricity is rising and energy has to come from somewhere.
So, Kaine finds himself threading the needle. In an article following the State Corporation Comission’s approval yesterday of the Wise County plant, the Washington Post quotes his defense of the plant:
He said he has faith in Virginia’s approval process, which he said relies on science and a thorough assessment of the state’s needs rather than politics.
“We’ve got a need for energy, and we’ve got to do it in a way that’s as clean and as focused on conservation as possible,” he said. However, he added, that must be balanced against “the need for reliable and relatively low-cost energy.”
Virginia relies on coal for too much of its energy to imagine a future without it, Kaine said. Moreover, by approving newer plants that employ the cleanest technology, the state can retire older, more polluting plants, he said.
More zealous elements of the environmental movement are not happy with the governor. Student activists are frosted because the governor won’t meet with them. On a less petulant note, Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Cale Jaffe has criticized the SCC ruling on the grounds that not one dime of the $1.8 billion in expenditures approved by the SCC would go to reducing greenhouse gases.
Absent voices. A number of voices appear to be absent from the debate. Who is representing the rate payers? Not the SCC, which notes in its press release yesterday that “the General Assembly has already determined by law that a coal-fired plant in Southwest Virginia was in the public interest.” Wow, think about that. No one is representing the rate payers. At least the environmentalists have one more shot at the project when the state Air Pollution Control Board holds hearings. Remarkably, the rate payers are…. hosed. And not a whimper of protest from anyone other than Bacon’s Rebellion. (See “Another Inter-Regional Transfer of Wealth.“
Dominion plans to spend $1.8 billion on construction, and the SCC is granting the utility a 12.12 percent return on equity. As I observed last year, the project was far more expensive on a cost-per-KW-hour basis than other clean-coal facilities on the drawing boards around the country. Among the more obvious inefficiencies is the legislative requirement to buy expensive Virginia coal, and the necessity of wheeling the electric power across the entire state, suffering transmission losses along the way.
I estimated last year that Dominion rate payers could wind up paying $650 million more than they would otherwise — and that was based on a $1.6 billion cost figure, which has somehow moved up to $1.8 billion. I am stupefied that not a single public figure in Virginia has raised a fuss. Are there no populists among us anymore? Where is Henry Howell when you need him? Does anyone even remember who Henry Howell was? If only we could harness the power of ol’ Henry spinning in his grave, we could put the whole energy crisis behind us.
